Category Archives: Portraits

Kathleen Edsom, a culinary student at Daytona State College, posing with Amour Bloomfield in the grass.

I took a few photos with both ladies looking at the camera, but I preferred having Kathleen look up at Amour so it isn’t an ordinary portrait. I got grass stains on my jeans… but I had to kneel in the grass to get the camera down low enough. This was near bldg. 300 at the campus, so there were a lot of students watching, asking questions, trying to join in. There’s a big photography school just a few paces away so this is nothing out of the ordinary.

Amour is looking for you! This is at the clock tower at Daytona State College. You can see her books and coffee in the background at the bottom left. It was overcast, which is the best lighting for portraits.

From the camera this was too dark, but I brightened it with the exposure tool and highlight recover to 45 in Adobe Camera Raw 5.0. There wasn’t much to do otherwise because she knew how to pose.

She didn’t know how to play my violin, but she picked it up pretty quickly so hopefully no one will notice. The book is Suzuki Vol. 2, which I enjoy playing. I’ve never advanced beyond a second-year level in violin (unlike piano), but at least I have good intonation.

At first Amour was looking at the music, but I told her to look at the camera instead. It doesn’t make sense because she should be looking at the score if she’s playing a song, but photography often makes no sense.

The next eight days will all be portraits of Amour. I took a lot of different pictures of her. Check back soon.

One of my neighbors takes his dogs for a walk every day. This is the black and brown chihuahua. I’m not sure if he was looking at me or my camera but he stayed a good distance back so I could snap his picture.

Coming out of the camera this was too dark, so I brightened the exposure in my RAW editor before importing the file into Photoshop.

Be sure to import your RAW photos into Photoshop in 16-bit color Adobe or ProPhoto RGB is you’re going to do substantial color or contrast edits. With 16 bits per channel, Photoshop has 65,536 discrete color values (2^16) to work with in each channel (red/green/blue). The standard 8 bits per channel only gives 256 discrete values (2^8), which makes color banding more likely after large edits. In Adobe Camera Raw 5.0 you can click the blue text at the bottom to change bit-depth and colorspaces.

On 2009-09-30 I shot some studio portraits for my friend Anita Cohen at Daytona State College, of her pregnant daughter Jacquelyn and her daughter’s husband Shaughn. Even though I’ve been a photographer since I was 13 (5 years), this was my first time working formally. Thanks to Prof. Joe Vance for letting me use the photography studio at Daytona State College even though I’m not in the photography program (I’m a computer science student).

Jacquelyn is due to have Shaughn Brady Jr. at the beginning of Nov. 2009. Sadly, Shaughn has to return to Iraq for his second tour in Apr. 2010, so he’ll miss his son’s growth from the age of five months to over a year. Here, he is wearing his camouflaged U.S. Army uniform. He’s a driver rather than front-line infantry. I hope he stays safe and doesn’t have to kill anyone.

We had a white background. Anita helped me figure out how to set up the hot lights and deflectors. I used one incandescent light (warm a.k.a. yellowish) on the left and one fluorescent light (cool a.k.a. bluish) on the right, which worked well. While some maternity photographers exaggerate the size of the woman’s belly or emphasize deep, brooding poses, I did not do that here. I prefer realistic, upbeat portraits showing love and joy.

Shaughn kissing his wife’s belly. I wasn’t sure about Jacquelyn’s facial expression, but I think Shaughn’s outfit balances the discipline of the army with the love he has for his wife and first son.

The only portrait of Jacquelyn and Shaughn I used the flash on. This is a conventional rather than artistic portrait, but portraiture is about the people in the portraits, and not necessarily innovation of the medium.

Shaughn is covering a red birthmark above Jacquelyn’s belly button. On the first portrait I edited it out, but on the second it was easier to leave it. I like to remove most blemishes to make people look how they’re supposed to look. My goal is to discreetly present an idealized version of reality. I don’t want laymen to say “this is Photoshopped!” Photographers will always say it, but non-photographers should not notice. However, depending on the angle and lighting in can be hard to clone out blemishes, so I have to balance art vs. time. I don’t air-brush; I either remove blemishes well or I don’t remove them at all. In my portfolio I have done difficult edits requiring hours of work (i.e. removing twigs, power lines, and houses), but elsewhere I re-shoot or leave it.

Our couple standing together, with Jacquelyn showing her tattoo saying “Shaughn” in cursive with a Hibiscus flower. The tattoo is for her husband and her son. I like it.

Anita (Jacquelyn’s Mom) calls this the “Marilyn Monroe” shot, in the style of an actress from the 1940s and ’50s famous for poses like this. For all the portraits, Anita wrapped the green sheet around Jacquelyn. Underneath Jacquelyn had a blue bathing suit on. Unfortunately that came through here (on her hip), but we didn’t notice it at the time. It’s not a big deal.

I shot all these portraits using my Canon Rebel XTi with my EF 50mm F1.4 prime lens in RAW mode. I edited in Adobe Camera RAW 5.0 (vignetting and color) and Adobe Photoshop CS4 (spot-editing), which is industry standard. I brightened the photos and made the colors warmer by shifting to a white balance with a higher Kelvin temperature, because I used automatic white balance in camera which was too blue.

Incidentally, a Daytona State College photography student asked to shoot Shaughn while he was in the lobby, but Anita shouted out “he’s already taken!”

Big thanks to Anita for making a $100 donation to my photography fund. I opened a checking account recently and deposited it there. I will use it for whatever photography or non-photography purchases I need to make in the next months, or bills.

I give well wishes and lots of love to Anita, Jacquelyn, and Shaughn, and I want the United States to leave Iraq, Afghanistan, and every other country we occupy, as soon as possible, never to return.

This could be a tribute to the rock band Queen, but I decided the title on the spot without thinking of them. This cat seems regal. A leader with an overbearing sense of entitlement. Instead of running away like the other cats in our neighborhood do, she stood her ground. She stared my camera down as I took many pictures from different angles. It could be a male cat—I didn’t check—but I didn’t get that impression. This is a queen cat.

I darkened her pupils and brightened the whites of her eyes. She has interesting eyes. I made them better. Photographers do that.

Ashley says hello to a 17×11 print of Yellow Grasshopper. That was hard to carry around, but it was worth it so they could meet. She’s funny and cute. The grasshopper is too, but he’s more the serious type.

She was smoking (see her left hand), and I rested the print on the ash can nearby. It was the only way to get them both in the shot looking at each other. Smoking is still as popular as ever.

I added brightness and vignetting, and corrected her skin tones. I set my camera to sunshine white balance, but it was a bit too bluish for this light.